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Awkward. I was hoping for honest reflections on the role reading, engaging with books, can play in incarcerated people's lives, and that was part of the text. The awkward part was the author's realization that literature didn't play as big a role in their lives as in hers, that the book club was an escape that she seemed happy to be part of until confronted with its relative position in others' lives and ends on a self-pitying note. 1/4

It's the memoir of an English professor who leads a literature course in a maximum security prison. It's okay: the premise is appealing, and the discussions are occasionally enlightening. But also the author sometimes comes across as naive or self-superior or both. To her credit, she often acknowledges her missteps and does not attempt to justify them; still, it's sometimes hard to sympathize with her or see what the takeaway is supposed to be.

The concept is fascinating, and when the men's thoughts and opinions are allowed into the narrative you can see the potential for a thought provoking read. But Brottman is, quite frankly, insufferable. She gets frustrated when the men don't share her own views on whatever they're reading, she complains that they're not connecting to the work, but then says they're wrong whenever they start drawing connections. Just when it seems that she's 👇

This one peaked my interests; prisons and books. The author shares her experience facilitating a book club inside a male prison and the lives of the inmates participating. She learned that facilitating a college-level book club with people who have spent most of their lives incarcerated is vastly different from teaching college students. She had unrealistic expectations of the inmates and had difficulty meeting them where they were. #MountTBR

I really enjoyed this book! Brottman has taught literature classes in a prison and branched off from this by starting a small book club. She takes us through the books read, the men‘s discussions of the books, and the inevitable turn of the conversation into their daily lives. I found it fascinating and am definitely interesting in reading some of the books she covered.

This was interesting enough, but I wasn't completely engrossed. For starters I hadn't read most of the literature she'd chosen for the book club except Macbeth, also I found her kinda naive about things in regards to the prisoners, plus asking them to read Lolita was ridiculous 🙄.

Embarking on a new nonfiction #audiobook 👍🏼

I have the Best. Agent. Ever. 🥃 #whiskey #writing

This book could have been titled "Why Don't Prisoners Like the Books I Like?" Maybe it gets better at the end, but I haven't read any of the books they are discussing, so there isn't anything to keep me interested, and I have 6 other holds from the library. I'm moving on.

Lit professor Brottman establishes a book club in a men's maximum security prison. The convicts provide different perspectives on classics such as Poe's The Black Cat, Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, and Nabokov's Lolita (spoiler: most of them hated Lolita). Brottman also shares their lives before prison and how it is now, without being voyeuristic or sensational. Very good memoir.

This whole quote-screenshot is so thought-provoking. As the author says, sometimes literature does indeed creep up on you; it doesn't always grab you by the throat right away. This non-fiction book is about the author running a book club with some prisoners at a maximum security location in Baltimore.

I kept waiting for this book to stop making me mad but it never did. I'm sure that she deeply cared about these men, and as an English major myself, I understand loving literature, but I just feel like every single chapter in this book was her adventures in privilege and her inability to see her students complexly.

One of my reading goals for this year is to read more non-fiction. I found this book through @bookriot and I am excited to start it.

Ok, just one more. What is up with all the deals lately?

Christmas Book Haul

promising so far #nonfictionnovember

On a roll this weekend!!!

Starting this one tonight. Here's to a weekend of reading!!

I'm a day behind on #augustphotochallenge. I'm embarrassed (proud?) to admit that this isn't my entire August book haul. Litsy is full of enablers! I should try to match my numbers of books read to bought, but I fear that equation is likely to remain lopsided. Oops. 😬

I really enjoyed this book.

I hope this is as good as I want it to be.

This book is about the power of literature to positively impact peoples' lives including convicts. This was an interesting social experiment. I give her the benefit of the doubt that she didn't just use these convicts as an excuse to write a book since she did some non-profit work in the past.